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The   Relations  of   Learning  and    Religion, 


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1 

I 


ADDRESSES 


INAUGURATION    OF 


Rev.  Julius  H.  Seelye, 


PRESIDENCY  OF  AMHERST  COLLEGE, 


June  27,  1877. 


Published  by  Vote  of  the  Trustees. 


SPRINGFIELD,  MASS.: 
LARK    W.  BRYAN   &   COMPANY,   PRINTERS 

1877. 


LD 

157.2 

1877 


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The   Relations  of   Learning  and   Religion. 


ADDRESSES 


INAUGURATION    OF 


Rev.  Julius  H.  Seelye, 


PRESIDENCY  OF  AMHERST  COLLEGE, 


June  2T,  187T. 


Published  by  Vote  op  the  Trustees. 


SPRINGFIELD,  MASS.: 

CLARK    W.    BRYAN    &    COMPANY,    PRINTERS. 
1877. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2010  with  funding  from 

Boston  Library  Consortium  IVIember  Libraries 


http://www.archive.org/details/addressesatinaug1920amhe 


PREFATORY  NOTE, 


The  public  exercises  in  connection  with  the  Inau- 
guration of  Rev.  Julius  H.  Seelye  as  the  fifth  Pres- 
ident of  Amherst  College,  took  place  at  the  College 
Hall,  Amherst,  Wednesday,  June  27,  1877,  at  three 
o'clock,  P.  M.,  and  consisted  of  Prayer,  by  Rev. 
Edmund  K.  Alden  of  Boston;  the  address,  on  the 
part  of  the  Trustees,  by  Rev.  Roswell  D.  Hitchcock 
of  New  York,  and  the  address  of  President  Seelye ; 
followed  by  the  singing  of  an  ode,  composed  for  the 
occasion,  by  Rev.  Albert  Bryant  of  West  Somerville, 
Mass.  The  addresses  are  herewith  published  by  vote 
of  the  Trustees. 


ADDRESS  TO  PRESIDENT  SEELYE 


REV.    DR.    HITCHCOCK, 


Reverend  and  Honored  Sir  : 

The  whole  College  bids  you  welcome  to  its 
highest  seat.  Trustees,  alumni,  teachers  and  stu- 
dents are  all  united  and  earnest  in  the  persuasion  of 
your  eminent  fitness  for  this  new  position,  united  and 
earnest  also  in  the  expectation  of  your  eminent  suc- 
cess. You  are  no  stranger  here,  and  nothing  is 
strange  to  you.  Made  President  of  the  College 
after  eighteen  years  of  constant  and  conspicuous 
service  in  one  of  its  departments  of  instruction,  the 
element  of  novelty  is  almost  wholly  wanting.  •  Re- 
taining the  chair  in  which  you  have  earned  your 
fame,  you  now  merely  add  to  its  familiar  duties  that 
general  oversight  of  the  institution,  with  which  you 
must  be  almost  equally  familiar. 
/  You  are  also  well  across  the  threshold  of  the  new 
office.  The  class  that  graduates  to-morrow  carries 
with  it  the  memory  of  your  first  presidential  year. 
And  neither  you,  nor  we,  have  anything  to  ask  for 


now  but  a  repetition  of  this  year's  record  for  many 
and  many  a  year  to  come. 

The  College  is  happy,  and  proud,  to  be  led  at  last 
by  one  of  its  own  alumni.  Your  four  predecessors 
were  all  providential  men.  The  four  administrations 
lie  in  our  history  like  so  many  geological  deposits. 
The  future  need  not  contradict,  nor  criticise,  the  past; 
but  a  robust  vitality  instinctively  asserts  itself  in  better 
and  better  forms.  We  salute  you,  therefore,  at  once 
as  the  fifth,  and  as  the  first  of  our  Amherst  presidents. 

To-day  we  promise,  and  we  promise  not,  a  new  de- 
parture. There  wdll  be  some  new  methods,  and,  we 
trust,  new  vigor,  but  essentially  no  new  aim.  Insti- 
tutions, of  whatever  sort,  are  partly  made,  but  for  the 
most  part  they  grow  ;  so  that  no  two  institutions  are, 
or  ever  ought  to  be  exactly  alike.  This  institution  has 
its  own  most  pronounced  and  most  sacred  traditions. 
Its  original  design,  the  training  of  Christian  ministers, 
was  soon  widened  to  take  in  the  broadest  and  most 
liberal  culture.  Sharp,  solid,  generous,  manly  Chris- 
tian scholarship  is  now,  and  long  has  been  our  watch- 
word. It  is  a  very  marked  and  precious  feature  in 
our  history  that,  from  the  very  beginning,  science  and 
religion,  the  science  even  of  nature,  have  been  equally 
emphasized.  "  Our  first  president,  and  our  third,  were 
.  both  of  them  distinguished  for  their  zeal  and  for  their 
attainments  in  natural  science.  In  the  great  conflict 
that  is  now  upon  us,  the  conflict  between  science  and 
reliscion,  this  institution  has  nothing  to  fear — ^I  might 


almost  say  it  has  nothing  to  learn.  It  is  well  armed, 
and  looks  forth  boldly  in  both  directions.  It  dares  to 
say  with  one  of  old,  "  Veritas,  a  quocunque  dicitur,  a 
Deo  est."  And  then  it  goes  on  to  say,  with  Picus  of 
Mirandola,  "  Philosophia  qumrit,  theologia  invenit,  re- 
ligio  joossidet  veritaiem." 

The  standard  of  required  attainments  in  order  to 
admission  to  college  has  been  of  late  very  consider- 
ably raised.  Something  more  may  still  be  done  in 
the  same  direction.  But,  in  my  judgment,  we  have 
very  nearly  reached  the  proper  limit.  To  require 
much  more  than  is  now  required,  will  be  to  make,  or 
try  to  make,  the  college  into  something  else  than  a 
college.  And  the  result  will  be  that  we  shall  lose  our 
college,  and  get  no  university  in  place  of  it.  Post- 
graduate courses  of  instruction  may,  however,  be  or- 
ganized, and  so  we  shall  be  able  to  push  our  brightest 
scholars  to  their  utmost. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  three  grand  sta- 
ples of  a  liberal  culture  are  Mathematics,  Greek  and 
Latin ;  and  in  this  order.  No  mountain  of  facts  can 
make  any  man  a  great  scholar.  His  mind  must  be 
trained  like  a  wrestler's  muscles.  He  must  have 
insight.  He  must  master  laws  and  principles.  He 
must  see  the  forest  in  spite  of  its  trees. 

The  real  instinctive  scholar  is  also  instinctively  a 
gentleman.  But  scholarship  may  be  acquired  ;  and 
so,  too,  may  the  gentlemanly  habit.  It  is  one  of  the 
good  signs  of  our  time  that  so  many  of  the  old  bar- 


barous  customs  of  college  life  have  already  been  out- 
grown. Let  none  of  them  be  spared.  The  memory 
of  them  is  all  we  need  for  our  cabinet  of  fossils.  Let 
this  institution  be  known  as  one  within  whose  pre- 
cincts no  freshman  is  ever  outraged,  no  son  of  poverty 
despised,  no  faithful  instructor  insulted,  and  it  shall 
wear  a  crown  of  glory  among  its  rivals 

But  this  occasion  does  not  belong  to  me,  nor  to 
those  whom  I  represent.  We  have  given  the  college 
its  new  President,  and  now  he  must  speak  for  himself 
and  for  it. 

Henceforth,  my  dear  sir,  the  college  is  yours  in  a 
pre-eminent  and  peculiar  sense.  We  have  no  painful 
solicitude  about  its  future.  Your  scholastic  training, 
though  ample,  has  not  been  exclusive.  You  have 
had  recent  experience  in  quite  another  sphere.  You 
have  also  been  round  the  globe,  and  stood  face  to 
face  with  civilizations  older  than  our  own.  You 
will  inspire,  encourage  and  illustrate  here  the  broad- 
est culture.  We  shall  send  you  raw  boys,  to  be  sent 
back  to  us  accomplished  Christian  scholars  and  gen- 
tlemen. 

And  so,  with  good  heart  and  hope  we  hand  you 
these  insignia  of  your  high  ofi&ce.  We  put  into  your 
keeping  the  charter,  the  seal  and  the  keys  of  the  col- 
lege. And  you  we  put,  and  the  college  with  you, 
into  the  keeping  of  Him  who  only  is  wise,  and  good, 
and  great,  the  end  of  all  science,  and  Lord  of  the 
rolling  years. 


INAUGURAL   ADDRESS. 


Amherst  College  was  founded  bv  Christian  people 
and  for  a  Christian  purpose.  It  was  an  association  of 
Christian  ministers,  who,  at  Shelburne,  May  10,  1815, 
started  measures  for  the  foundation  of  the  College, 
and  it  was  the  Christian  men  and  women  of  Franklin 
and  Hampshire  Counties  by  whom  these  measures 
were  carried  to  their  consummation.  The  inspiring 
sources  of  the  whole  movement  were  devotion  to 
Christ  and  zeal  for  His  kingdom.  When  the  first 
college  building  was  dedicated,  and  its  first  president 
and  professor  were  inaugurated,  September  18,  1821, 
"  the  promotion  of  the  religion  of  Christ  "  was  de- 
clared to  be  the  special  object  of  the  undertaking, 
and  the  prayers  which  were  then  offered  for  "  the 
guidance  and  protection  of  the  great  Head  of  the 
church,  to  whose  service," — in  the  language  then 
used, — "  this  institution  is  consecrated,"  have  been 
since  repeated  with  undiminished  earnestness  and 
faith,  on  every  similar  occasion.  At  the  first  meeting 
of  the  trustees  after  the  legislative  act  of  incorpo- 
ration, steps  were  taken  for  the  organization  of  a 
Christian  church,  which,  when  formed,  Avas  named  the 


10 

Church  of  Christ  in  Amherst  College,  as  indicative 
no  less  of  the  Catholic  than  the  Christian  spirit  which 
should  here  reign. 

It  was  the  original  purpose,  from  which  the  friends 
and  guardians  of  the  college  have  never  swerved, 
that  there  should  be  here  furnished  the  means  for  the 
highest  attainable  culture  in  science  and  literature 
and  philosophy.  The  college  was  not  to  fall  below 
the  best  in  its  intellectual  provisions.  But  the  con- 
stant and  chief  aim  of  its  founders  was  to  establish 
here  an  educational  institution  in  which  Christian 
faith  might  dominate,  and  whose  power  might  sub- 
serve the  knowledge  of  Christian  truth.  From  Presi- 
dent Moore,  in  whose  saintly  zeal  the  earliest  students 
of  the  college  found  both  instruction  and  inspiration, 
to  President  Stearns,  whose  purity  and  faith  sur- 
rounded his  presence  like  a  halo,  ennobling  him  and 
enlio-htening  and  elevating  all  who  had  contact  with 
him,  the  controlling  purpose  of  the  college  has  been 
to  provide  the  highest  possible  educational  advan- 
tao-es,  and  to  penetrate  these  with  a  living  faith  in 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  a  supreme  devotion  to  His 
kingdom. 

In  all  this  Amherst  College  is  not  peculiar.  Other 
institutions  of  learning  have  been  founded  and  car- 
ried forward  with  the  same  purpose.  Indeed,  here  is 
the  source  from  which  directly  and  obviously,  or  in- 
directly, all  our  influences  of  education  flow.  The 
schools    of  the    Christian    world    trace    their    actual 


11 

historical  origin  to  the  Christian  church.  As  early  as 
the  third  century  we  find  it  recognized  as  a  Christian 
duty  to  plant  schools  for  the  nurture  of  the  children 
and  youth  wherever  churches  were  planted.  In  sub- 
sequent centuries,  by  recommendations  and  decrees 
of  councils  and  synods,  the  attention  of  Christian 
ministers  was  everywhere  directed  to  the  establish- 
ment of  town  and  village  and  parochial  schools  "  be- 
cause,"— as  the  third  council  of  Lateran  in  1179 
decreed, — "  the  church  of  God  as  a  pious  mxOther  is 
bound  to  provide  opportunity  for  learning."  It  was 
under  this  influence  that  England,  in  the  time  of 
Edward  III.,  was  called  the  land  of  schools,  every 
cathedral  and  almost  every  monastery  having  its 
own. 

The  precise  time  and  way  in  which  the  oldest 
universities  of  Europe  arose  cannot  be  definitely  ascer- 
tained, but  the  evidence  is  clear  that  they  directly 
owed  their  origin  to  the  church,  and  were  subject  to 
her  control.  The  University  of  Paris,  the  oldest  of 
them  all — with  the  possible  exception  of  that  at 
Bologna — was  designated  as  "  the  first  school  of  the 
church,"  and  the  oldest  public  documents  extant 
respecting  it  are  ecclesiastical  decrees  for  its  manage- 
ment. The  thousands  on  thousands  who  flocked  to 
these  seats  of  learning  during  the  Middle  Ages,  exceed- 
ing by  far, — whether  we  take  their  actual  number  or 
their  relative  proportion, — the  classes  since  attending 
the   same,   were   drawn   thither, — so  far  as  we   can 


12 

judge  from  the  results, — not  so  much  by  zest  for 
study  as  by  zeal  for  the  service  of  the  church.  When 
kings  and  emperors  added  their  efforts  to  those  of 
synods  and  councils  for  the  advancement  of  learning, 
as  when  Charlemagne  extended  schools  through  his 
empire  for  the  education  of  the  clergy,  or  Alfred,  ac- 
cording to  the  old  Warwick  chronicler,  erected  the 
first  three  halls  at  Oxford  in  the  name  of  the  Holy 
Trinity,  they  sought  for  learning  as  the  handmaid  of 
religion,  because  they  saw  that  religion  was  the  con- 
servator of  the  state.  When  the  Reformation  arose, 
its  great  religious  quickening  was  a  wide-reaching 
inspiration  toward  education,  as  well.  The  great 
reformers  were  well  nigh  as  zealous  in  the  work  of 
education  as  in  that  of  religious  purification.  "It  is 
a  grave  and  serious  thing,"  says  Luther  in  his  Ad- 
dress to  the  Common  Councils  of  all  the  Cities  of 
Germany  in  Behalf  of  Christian  Schools,  written  in 
1524,  "  affecting  the  interest  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ 
and  of  all  the  world,  that  we  apply  ourselves  to  the 
work  of  aiding  and  instructing  the  young.  I  entreat 
you  in  God's  behalf  not  to  think  so  hghtly  of  this 
matter,  as  many  do."  Melancthon  equaled  Luther 
in  his  zeal  and  surpassed  him  in  his  practical  activity 
for  the  advancement  of  learning.  He  wrote  text- 
books on  dialectics,  rhetoric,  physics  and  ethics,  which 
were  more  widely  used  in  schools  than  any  other 
books  of  his  time.  No  man,  not  even  Erasmus,  con- 
tributed so  profoundly  to  the  culture  of  the  age  as 


13 

did  Melancthon.  It  was  through  a  visitation  of  the 
churches  and  schools  of  the  electorate  of  Saxony  in 
1527,  in  which  more  than  thirty  men  were  engaged 
through  a  whole  year,  that  the  so-called  Saxon  school 
system,  which  may  properly  be  termed  the  basis  of 
the  modern  German  system  of  education,  was  drawn 
up  by  Luther  and  Melancthon.  The  great  universi- 
ties of  Konigsberg,  Jena,  Halle,  Gottingen,  and  after- 
wards Berlin,  owed  their  existence  directly  to  the 
reformation,  while  those  of  Tubingen,  Wittenberg  and 
Leipsic  received  their  character  and  power  from  the 
same  source. 

All  our  educational  frame-work  owes  its  corner- 
stone and  informing  law  to  the  interests  of  religion. 
Our  oldest  college,  founded  less  than  sixteen  years 
after  the  landing  of  the  Pilgrims,  and  six  years  after 
the  first  settlement  of  Boston,  had,  says  Johnson  in 
his  Wo7ider  -  Working  Providence,  "  its  end  firmly 
fixed  on  the  glory  of  God  and  good  of  all  his  elect 
people  the  world  throughout  in  vindicating  the  truth 
of  Christ  and  promoting  His  glorious  kingdom."  The 
original  charter  of  Yale  college  declares  the  motive 
for  the  undertaking  to  be  "  a  sincere  regard  to  and 
zeal  for  upholding  and  propagating  of  the  Christian 
Protestant  religion."  The  first  order  made  upon  this 
continent  for  the  establishment  of  common  schools, 
was  issued  by  the  united  colonies  of  Connecticut  in 
1644,  and  copied  and  re-declared  by  the  colony  of 


14 

Massachusetts    Bay    in    1647,   in    these    remarkable 
words  : 

"  It  being  one  chiefe  project  of  y*ould  deluder, 
Satan,  to  keepe  men  from  the  knowledge  of  y®  Scrip- 
tures, as  in  form'"  times  by  keeping  y""  in  an  unknowne 
tongue,  so  in  these  latt^  times  by  pswading  from  y® 
use  of  tongues,  y*  so  at  least  y®  true  sence  &  mean- 
ing of  y®  originall  might  be  clouded  hj  false  glosses 
of  saint  seeming  deceivers,  y*  learning  may  not  be 
buried  in  y®  grave  of  o""  fath''^  in  y®  church  &  coih- 
onwealth,  the  Lord  assisting  o'"  endeavor's, — 

"  It  is  therefore  ord^^ed,  y*  ev^'y  towneship  in  this 
jurisdiction  aff  y®  Lord  hath  increased  j^  to  y®  num- 
ber of  50  household'"^,  shall  then  forthw*^  apoint  one 
w*^in  their  towne  to  teach  all  such  children  as  shall 
resort  to  him  to  write  &  reade,  whose  wages  shall  be 
paid  eith""  by  ye®  parents  or  masf^  of  such  children, 
or  by  y®  inhabitants  in  gen^'all,  by  way  of  supply,  as 
y®  maior  p^t  of  those  y*  ord""  y®  prudentials  of  y®  towne 
shall  appoint;  provided,  those  y*  send  their  children 
be  not  oppressed  by  paying  much  more  y"  they  can 
have  y™  taught  for  in  oth""  townes  ;  &  it  is  furth*"  or- 
dered, y*  where  any  towne  shall  increase  to  y^  numb"" 
of  100  families  or  household''®,  they  shall  set  up  a 
gramer  schoole,  y®  m''  thereof  being  able  to  instruct 
youths  so  farr  as  they  may  be  fited  for  y®  university, 
provided,  y*  if  any  towne  neglect  y®  pformance  hereof 
above  one  yeare,  y*  every  such  towne  shall  pay  5^6 
to  y®  next  schoole  till  they  shall  p^'forme  this  order." 


15 

Though  all  our  colleges  and  systems  of  common 
schools  do  not  start  so  obviously  from  a  religious  im- 
pulse, though  it  is  claimed  for  some  that  their  source 
and  aims  are  purely  secular,  there  has  not  yet  ap- 
peared any  prominent  and  long  continued  educational 
influence,  among  us  or  elsewhere,  wholly  dissociated 
from  a  religious  origin  and  inspiration.  "  I  have 
always  despaired,"  said  a  superintendent  of  public 
schools  in  Ohio,  "  of  maintaining  even  a  good  com- 
mon school,  where  there  is  not  a  Christian  church  to 
help  it." 

Is  this  wide-reaching  relation  of  religion  and  edu- 
cation after  all  only  accidental  and  temporary,  or  has 
it  a  rational  ground,  which  is  therefore  abiding  and  on 
which,  if  we  are  wise,  we  shall  still  continue  to  build  ? 
There  is  at  the  present  time  no  graver  or  more  practi- 
cal question  relating  to  education  than  this,  and  none 
also  on  which  more  hasty  and  inconsiderate  answers 
apt  to  be  given,  perhaps,  on  either  side.  It  will  help 
us  to  a  clear  view  and  correct  conclusion,  if  we  divest 
ourselves  at  the  outset  of  the  very  common  but  quite 
superficial  notion  that  there  is  an  inherent  law  of 
progress  in  human  nature,  by  which  it  is  constantly 
seeking  and  gaining  for  itself  an  improved  condition. 
Such  a  notion  is  not  supported  by  the  facts,  either  of 
history  or  of  human  nature  itself.  The  facts  of  his- 
tory certainly  show  a  far  more  prominent  law  of  de- 
terioration than  of  progress.  Over  by  far  the  larger 
portion  of  the  globe  to-day,  and  with  by  far  the  larger 


16 

portion  of  mankind,  retrogression  reigns  instead  of 
progress,  and  this  is  true  as  we  look  back  through  all 
ages.  Progress  not  only  has  never  been  universal, 
but  so  far  as  records  reach,  it  has  always  been  con- 
fined to  the  few ;  wherever  yet  its  fertilizing  streams 
have  flowed,  they  have  been  rivers  in  narrow  beds, 
never  covering  the  earth  as  the  waters  cover  the  sea. 
Moreover,  in  unnumbered  instances  where  progress 
has  begun,  it  has  died  out  and  disappeared.  The  evi- 
dences of  this  are  as  striking  as  they  are  mournful. 
No  historical  fact  is  clearer  than  that  human  prog- 
ress has  never  revealed  any  inherent  power  of  self- 
perpetuation.  Arts,  languages,  literatures,  sciences, 
civilizations,  religions,  have,  in  unnumbered  instances, 
deteriorated  and  left  a  people  to  grope  in  the  shadow 
of  death,  whose  progenitors  seemed  to  rejoice  in  the 
light  of  life.  There  is  as  yet  no  induction  of  facts 
sufficiently  broad,  if  we  had  nothing  else,  to  warrant 
the  conclusion,  that  any  progress  that  the  world  now 
knows  is  certain  to  be  permanent  or  likely  to  be  uni- 
versal. 

But  these  facts  of  history  would  not  surprise  us 
if  we  did  but  see  that  they  represent,  on  a  broad 
scale,  only  a  deep-seated  fact  in  human  nature  itself. 
Strange,  and  startling,  and  sad  as  it  is,  the  fact  will  not 
be  doubted  by  a  close  observer,  that  there  is  a  much 
deeper  impulse  in  human  nature  to  throw  away  its 
privileges  than  to  retain  them.  Endow  a  man  with 
any  possessions  you  please,  give  him  any  kind  or  de- 


17 

gree  of  culture,  let  his  culture  be  clothed  and  crowned 
with  virtue  till  he  shines  like  the  sun,  and  lesser  stars 
fade  in  his  light,  and  then  leave  him  to  himself;  take 
away  the  restraints  and  incentives  of  society,  free  his 
thoughts  from  the  claims  of  God  and  duty,  and  let 
only  the  dictates  and  desires  which  are  bounded  by 
his  individual  will  control  him,  and  how  long  before 
his  glory  will  be  gone,  and  you  might  search  in  vain 
among  the  ashes  of  his  wasted  privileges  for  a  single 
spark  of  his  former  fire  ?  The  influences  which  per- 
petuate a  man's  culture,  which  give  it  strength  and 
growth  and  fruitfulness  are  not  of  the  man's  own 
creation.  They  are  not  his  in  any  sense,  save  as  he 
receives  them,  and  he  can  no  more  retain  them  than 
can  he  retain  to-morrow,  the  light  of  the  sun  by 
which  he  walks  to-day,  and  without  whose  continued 
shining  he  walks  in  darkness. 

And  it  is  no  more  within  the  power  of  human  nature 
to  originate  than  it  is  to  perpetuate  its  progress. 
There  are  many  current  notions  upon  this  point  which 
a  clear  discernment  would  at  once  dispel.  We  crudely 
talk  as  though  human  nature  by  the  evolution  of  its 
own  inherent  forces  could  lift  itself  from  a  lower  to 
a  higher  plane,  but  in  no  case  was  this  ever  done. 
The  historical  fact  has  always  been  that  the  higher 
has  first  descended  upon  and  breathed  its  inspiration 
into  the  lower  before  the  latter  has  shown  any  im- 
pulse to  improvement.  In  our  processes  of  education, 
the  higher  schools  have  not  grown  out  of  the  lower 


18 

and  do  not  rest  upon  them,  but  the  higher  school  is 
historically  first,  and  the  lower  one  is  not  its  precursor 
but  its  product;  there  is  no  law  of  evolution  by 
which  the  common  school  grows  up  into  the  college, 
for  as  an  historical  fact,  the  college  is  actually  first, 
and  gives  birth  to  the  common  school.  It  is  not  b}^ 
the  lower  education  of  the  many  that  we  come  to 
have  the  higher  education  of  the  few,  but  the  exact 
converse  of  this  is  the  universal  rule. 

A  great  man  who  leads  his  nation  or  his  age  to  a 
higher  state  is  no  mere  product  of  forces  belonging 
to  the  time  of  his  appearance.  What  forces  belong- 
ing to  his  time  produced  Moses,  or  Confucius,  or 
Sakya-Muni,  or  Zoroaster,  or  Socrates  ?  A  great  man 
is  a  God-bestowed  gift  upon  his  time,  giving  to  his 
time  a  new  day  for  w^hich  there  is  no  approaching 
dawn,  and  whose  coming  is  as  unexplained  by  the 
conditions  when  he  came,  as  it  was  unexpected  by 
the  people  to  whom  he  came.  They  are  lifted  by 
him  to  a  higher  plane,  because  he  stands  already,  and 
from  the  outset,  on  a  higher  plane  than  they.  So  far 
as  records  of  history  go,  no  nation  ever  originated  its 
own  progress.  No  savage  has  ever  civilized  himself 
The  lamp  which  lightens  one  nation  in  its  progress, 
has  always  been  lighted  by  a  lamp  behind  it. 

But  whence,  then,  does  progress  originate,  and  by 
what  means  is  it  perpetuated  ?  A  general  answer  to 
this  question  is  not  difficult.  Divesting  ourselves  of 
all  theories   which   prejudge   the   facts,  and  looking 


19 

only  at  the  facts  themselves,  it  is  quite  clear  that  the 
prime  impulse  toward  human  improvement,  is  not 
any  desire  for  what  may  be  called  the  arts  or  advan- 
tages of  civilization.  These  have  no  attraction  to  a 
people  which  does  not  already  possess  them.  They 
are  not  attractive  to  a  savage  ;  on  the  contrary,  he 
finds  them  repulsive.  This,  in  fact,  is  what  makes 
him  a  savage,  that  he  hates  the  very  condition  in 
which  the  civilized  man  finds  his  joy.  He  is  con- 
scious of  but  few  wants,  and  these  of  the  simplest 
sort,  which  it  needs  but  few  efforts  to  satisfy  ;  and 
the  gifts  of  civilization  for  which  he  feels  no  necessity, 
offer  him,  therefore,  no  advantages  which  he  can  ap- 
preciate, and  can  excite  in  him  no  eftbrts  to  obtain 
them.  The  first  impulse  to  any  improvement  of  a 
marl's  outward  condition  must  come  from  the  quick- 
ening of  some  inner  inspiration,  without  which  all  the 
blandishments  of  civilization  could  no  more  win  a 
savage  to  a  better  state  than  could  all  the  warmth  of 
the  sun  woo  a  desert  to  a  fruitful  field. 

But  the  seed  of  this  inner  quickening  can  never 
be  planted  in  the  soul  of  the  savage  by  advancing 
knowledge.  He  does  not  desire  knowledge  any 
more  than  he  desires  the  power  which  knowledge 
brings.  He  is  not  only  indifferent  to  his  ignorance 
but  he  is  unconscious  of  it,  for  ignorance  is  first  of  all 
and  always  ignorant  of  itself.  An  ignorant  people 
has  never  yet  leaped  from  its  ignorance  into  advanc- 
ing knowledge  without  some  other  impulse  than  the 


20 

knowledge  furnished.  In  order  that  knowledge  may 
be  attractive  and  thus  attained,  the  soul  must  be  kin- 
dled by  some  inspiring  sentiment,  and  thus  we  find 
as  an  historical  fact  that  the  quickened  heart  is  the 
precursor  of  the  enlightened  intellect  and  the  origin 
of  progress  with  any  people. 

In  the  history  of  human  knowledge,  science  is 
always  preceded  and  quickened  by  art,  yet  art  does 
not  spontaneously  originate.  While  the  mother  of 
science,  she  herself  is  the  child  of  religion.  These 
sentiments  of  the  soul  in  which  art  finds  its  fountain, 
and  from  which  all  the  streams  of  science  spring,  are 
the  deep  convictions  of  the  soul's  religious  wants  and 
its  religious  capabilities.  Take  to  illustrate  this  any 
of  the  arts  which  mark  the  culture  of  a  people  and 
trace  their  origin  and  history.  It  might  be  crudely 
supposed  that  architecture  arose  from  a  natural  ne- 
cessity man  has  of  furnishing  himself  a  shelter  and  a 
dwelling-place.  But  allowing  this  natural  necessity 
to  exist,  and  supposing  it  to  have  found  its  natural 
expression,  the  result  need  have  no  more  resemblance 
to  architecture  than  have  the  huts  of  a  Hottentot 
kraal  to  the  palaces  of  Vienna  and  Versailles.  Man's 
natural  want  of  a  shelter  can  be  supplied,  and  if  we 
look  simply  at  numbers,  is  supplied  by  a  great  major- 
ity of  men,  with  as  little  beauty  and  as  little  archi- 
tectural skill  as  are  found  in  the  habitations  of  the 
ant  or  the  beaver.  But,  aside  from  this,  the  truth  is 
that  the  history  of  architecture  does  not  begin  with 


21 

the  history  of  human  homes.  The  oldest  remains  of 
architecture  are  symbols  and  monuments  of  religious 
faith.  Columns  and  colonnades  and  temples,  struc- 
tures erected  for  worship,  or  to  symbolize  some  object 
or  doctrine  of  religion, — these,  and  not  human  dwell- 
ings, are  the  earliest  indications  we  have  of  the  dawn 
of  architecture.  Looking  now,  not  in  the  light  of 
any  theory  which  prejudges  the  facts,  but  only  at 
the  facts  themselves,  we  are  obliged  to  say  that  it 
was  not  the  construction  of  his  dwelling-house  that 
taught  man  to  build  his  temple,  but  exactly  the 
other  way.  ' 

The  same  is  true  with  sculpture,  painting,  poetry, 
music.  It  was  a  religious  impulse  which  gave  to  all 
these  their  first  inspiration.  The  oldest  monuments 
we  possess  of  any  of  these  arts  are  associated  with 
some  religious  rite  or  faith.  But  more  than  this,  we 
must  also  notice  the  undoubted  fact  that  the  arts 
have  grown  in  glory  just  as  the  religious  sentiment 
has  grown  in  power.  The  period  of  decadence  in  art 
is  always  indicated  by  a  prior  decline  in  religion. 
There  is  no  high  art,  as  I  suspect  we  may  also  say 
there  is  never  a  great  genius  uninspired  by  some  sort 
of  a  religious  sentiment  and  impulse.  As  the  seed 
whose  growth  shall  fill  the  fields  with  plenty,  and 
clothe  the  earth  w^ith  beauty,  slumbers  in  the  earth 
in  darkness,  and  with  no  signs  of  life  till  the  warmth 
of  the  sun  comes  nigh,  so  all  the  thoughts  of  men, 
with  whatever    capabilities  of  art    and   science    en- 


22 

dowecl,  lie  dormant  in  the  soul  till  some  divine  com- 
munication stirs  the  soul  with  the  sense  of  its  ac- 
countability and  its  sin,  and  kindles  it  with  a  longing 
for  the  favor  of  its  God.  If,  as  all  the  facts  would 
indicate,  even  if  we  had  no  evidence  from  Scripture, 
man  originally  started  on  the  high  plane  of  these 
divine  communications,  from  which  he  fell,  all  his 
subsequent  degradation  has  had  its  stages  exactly 
marked  by  the  prior  degree  in  which  his  knowledge 
of  God  has  been  clouded.  The  knowledge  of  God  is 
the  light  of  our  inner  life,  and  when  this  light  grows 
dim  or  dies,  the  glory  of  great  thoughts  and  noble 
deeds  fades  also  and  expires.  I  know  not  elsewhere 
so  profound  a  statement  of  the  law  of  history  when 
men  do  not  retain  God  in  their  knowledge,  as  Paul's 
in  the  first  chapter  of  Romans  :  "  Because  that  when 
they  knew  God  they  glorified  him  not  as  God,  nei- 
ther were  thankful,  but  became  vain  in  their  imagin- 
ations and  their  foolish  heart  was  darkened.  Profess- 
ing themselves  to  be  wise  they  became  fools,  and 
changed  the  glory  of  the  incorruptible  God  into  an 
image  like  to  corruptible  man,  and  to  birds,  and  four- 
footed  beasts  and  creeping  things.  Wherefore  God 
also  gave  them  up  to  uncleanness  through  the  lusts 
of  their  ow^n  hearts." 

All  this  is  quite  contrary,  I  am  well  aware,  to  many 
current  theories.  I  read  in  a  late  book  by  a  noted 
author,  "  To  believe  that  man  was  originally  civilized 
and  then  suffered  utter  degradation  in  so  many  re- 


23 

gions,  is  to  take  a  pitiably  low  view  of  human  na- 
ture." But,  alas,  this  is  exactly  the  view  which  the 
sad  facts  of  history  oblige  us  to  take,  and  we  must 
square  our  views  of  human  nature  to  the  actual  facts 
of  the  case,  whether  or  not  it  would  better  suit  our 
desires  and  our  theories  to  have  them  otherwise.  All 
the  facts  of  history  point  backward  not  to  an  original 
savage  state,  but,  as  the  deep  thinkers  of  antiquity 
in  the  pagan  world  were  constantly  declaring,  to  an 
original  golden  age  of  peace  and  purity. 

Aureus  banc  vitam  in  terris  Saturnus  agebat. 

Man  became  corrupt  and  degraded  instead  of  being 
originally  such,  and  as  all  his  degradation  comes  from 
the  darkness  into  which  he  plunges  when  he  turns 
away  from  God,  so  it  is  not  strange  that  his  purity 
and  upward  progress  are  restored  to  him  only  as  the 
light  of  God's  communications  shines  again  upon  his 
soul.  Here  is  not  only  the  first  impulse  to  human 
progress,  but  the  only  one  which  in  our  time,  or  pre- 
viously, has  shown  any  permanent  power.  Wild, 
uncivilized,  barbarous,  savage  people  are  changing 
to-day  to  a  state  of  peace  and  purity  and  advancing 
civilization,  not  by  commerce  or  conquest  of  arms, 
not  by  letters,  or  science,  or  the  knowledge  of  the  so- 
called  useful  arts,  but  by  the  simple  preaching  of  the 
gospel,  by  the  story  of  God's  grace,  which  makes  a 
man  feel  that  he  is  a  sinner,  and  gives  him  his  first 
longing  for  a  better  state.     He  who  does  not  see  the 


24 

exhibitions  of  this  now  taking  pLice  on  different  parts 
of  the  globe  is  Wind  to  some  of  the  most  obvious  and 
most  important  events  of  the  present  age.  A  naked, 
filthy  savage,  who  has  heard  the  story  of  the  gospel 
and  been  brought  to  a  living  application  of  its  strange 
truths,  wishes  at  once  to  be  clothed  and  clean,  and 
becomes  thus  for  the  first  time  conscious  of  wants 
which  his  industry  must  relieve.  Civilization,  edu- 
cation, all  progress  starts  with  this  inner  quickening, 
which  they  could  no  more  themselves  originate  than 
could  the  brooks  which  beautify  the  meadows,  orig- 
inate the  mountain  springs  from  which  they  flow. 
Clear  observers  now  acknowledge  the  mistake  of  at- 
tempting to  civilize  a  savage  people  through  any 
other  process  than  by  a  prior  religious  renovation. 
Plato  saw  this  when  he  argued  in  The  Sojjhist,  that 
men  merged  in  sensualism  need  to  be  improved  be- 
fore they  can  be  instructed,  they  must  first  become 
virtuous  before  they  can  be  made  intelligent. 

The  basis  and  life  of  all  our  present  civilization  are 
clearly  seen  to  be  in  the  Christian  spirit  and  the 
religious  quickening  it  has  wrought.  It  was  not  the 
capture  of  Constantinople  by  the  Turks,  and  the  con- 
sequent scattering  of  Greek  scholars  over  Europe, 
which  led  to  the  modern  revival  of  learning.  And  it 
was  not  the  grander  proportions  which  the  natural 
world  assumed  through  the  discoveries  of  Columbus 
and  Kepler,  nor  the  new  method  furnished  by  Bacon 
for  the  instauration  of  the  natural  sciences  Avhich  has 


25 

led  to  so  vast  an  increase  of  the  study  of  nature  in 
these  modern  times.  The  light  before  which  the 
Dark  Ages  rolled  away,  and  in  which  all  the  germs 
of  our  modern  life  have  been  quickened,  was  the 
dawn  of  the  Reformation,  which,  long  before  the 
time  of  Luther,  was  falling  on  the  vision  of  Tauler, 
and  Eckhart,  and  Nicolas  of  Basle,  and  the  Gottes- 
freunde,  and  the  saintly  men  who  wrote  the  Theolo- 
gia  Germanica  and  the  Imitation  of  Christ. 

And  not  only  the  dawn  but  the  day  of  which  we 
boast,  has  proceeded  step  by  step  from  the  clearer 
shining  on  the  human  soul  of  some  truths  which  the 
Bible  first  revealed.  It  is  a  simple  but  most  signifi- 
cant truth,  that  every  stage  of  our  modern  progress 
has  been  preceded  and  inspired  by  a  closer  study  of 
the  Scriptures  and  a  deeper  reverence  for  them  as 
the  word  of  God. 

These  historical  facts  will  not  surprise  the  profound 
student  of  human  nature.  To  such  a  student  not 
only  are  the  religious  feelings  seen  to  spring  from  the 
deepest  susceptibility  of  the  soul,  but  they  are  seen 
also  to  form  the  very  ground  work  of  intellectual 
development.  The  first  impulse  to  know  is  always 
a  feeling.  The  thoughts  of  the  intellect  are  started 
and  sustained  by  the  sentiments  of  the  soul.     But 

"  These  first  affections, 
These  shadowy  recollections, 
Which,  be  they  what  they  may, 
Are  yet  the  fountain-light  of  all  our  day, 
Are  yet  a  masterlight  of  all  our  seeing," 
4 


26 

do  not  have  their  object,  do  not  find  their  source  in 
finite  things.  The  knowledge  of  the  finite,  instead 
of  producing,  presupposes  the  knowledge  of  the  in- 
finite. The  disposition  to  measure  and  grasp  the 
finite  is  not  derived  from  the  finite,  for  the  finite, 
with  no  standard  to  measure,  and  no  power  to  grasp 
itself,  can  originate  no  impulse  to  attempt  these 
achievements.  The  first  movement  of  thought,  in  so 
far  as  it  differs  from  the  thoughtless  perceptions  of 
the  brute,  is  a  movement  to  learn  the  ground  and 
meaning  of  things.  The  first  question  asked  by  the 
human  mind,  and  which  also  marks  the  mind's  prog- 
ress in  all  its  stages,  is  the  question.  Why.  But  this 
question  never  could  be  asked  save  for  the  deep  con- 
viction that  it  could  be  answered.  The  disposition 
to  seek  the  explanation  of  things  could  never  arise 
but  for  the  ineradicable  conviction  that  the  explana- 
tion can  be  found.  But  what  does  this  imply  when 
thoroughly  considered  ?  An  explanation  needing 
itself  to  be  explained  does  not  answer  the  mind's  in- 
quiries. These  inquiries  cease  only  when  an  ultimate 
and  self-sufficient  ground  is  reached.  The  mind  rests 
only  on  what  is  itself  at  rest.  But  nature  does  not 
rest.  Nothing  in  nature  rests.  Life  in  unnumbered 
generations  rolling  like  a  flood,  light  and  heat  pene- 
trating space  in  perpetual  pulsations,  the  winds,  the 
waves,  the  stars  sweeping,  swelling,  circling  in  cease- 
less change,  mark  the  restlessness  of  nature  every- 
where.   Up  and  down  this  realm  of  things  the  human 


27 

thought  wanders  in  its  inquiries,  seeking  rest  and 
finding  none.  One  inquiry  only  answered  by  an- 
other, one  fact  of  nature  expounded  by  a  farther  fact, 
which  needs  itself  an  explanation  by  something  still 
bej^ond,  keeps  thought  ever  baffled,  keeps  its  prod- 
ucts of  philosophy  and  science  ever  tossing  to  and 
fro,  and  makes  the  mind  in  its  thirst  for  truth  like 
the  traveler  thirsting  for  water  in  the  desert,  before 
whose  eye  floats  the  distant  mirage  of  flowing  fount- 
ains and  shining  streams,  which  keeps  beyond  him  as 
he  travels  toward  it,  and  still  mocks  him  with  its  de- 
lusion as  he  sinks  exhausted  in  the  sand.  Only  rea- 
son rests ;  only  the  supernatural  rests,  and  the  human 
mind  in  its  inquiries  into  nature  in  its  eager  search 
for  the  unseen  meaning  of  the  things  it  sees,  finds 
joy  and  peace  only  when  it  finds  the  supernatural. 

But  the  supernatural  marks  the  end  no  more  than 
it  does  the  beginning  of  the  mind's  inquiries.  The 
supernatural  is  the  alpha  as  well  as  the  omega  of  the 
human  thought.  We  never  should  be  impelled  to 
seek  it  but  for  its  own  stirrings  already  within  us. 
That  which  the  thoughts  of  our  intellect  are  striving 
to  formulate  is  already  present  in  the  sentiments  of 
the  soul.  The  mind's  pursuit  of  science  and  philos- 
ophy is  only  its  impulse  to  know  what  it  already  feels, 
is  only  its  effort  to  become  conscious  of  what  is  al- 
ready its  unconscious  possession.  The  saying  of  Les- 
sing  is  often  quoted,  "  If  the  Almighty  should  hold 
out  to  me  in  His  right  hand  all  truth,  and  in  His  left 


28 

the  search  for  truth,  and  deign  to  offer  me  which  I 
would  prefer,  I  would  say,  Lord,  pardon  the  weakness 
of  thy  servant,  yet  grant  me  the  search  for  truth 
rather  than  all  truth."  But  could  the  human  mind 
ever  take  such  an  attitude  as  this  ?  Could  we  ever 
choose  a  progress  which  has  no  goal  save  the  endless 
repetition  of  its  own  steps, — a  way  like  that  of  Sysi- 
phus  rolling  his  stone  up  the  steep  mountain  side, 
only  to  find  it  slipping  from  his  grasp  before  it  reached 
the  summit,  and  ever  rolling  back  into  the  valley 
again?  No,  no,  we  seek  that  we  may  find.  The  hope 
without  fruition  dies,  and  the  hopeless  search  would 
not  be  undertaken  by  one  who  knew  its  hopelessness. 
The  search  for  truth  is  excited  only  by  the  love  of 
truth,  and  the  love  of  truth  bears  witness  to  the  pres- 
ence of  the  truth  within  the  soul,  whose  face  that 
soul  alone  desires  to  see  which  has  already  felt  its 
quickening  embrace.  But  truth  is  inconceivable 
without  God.  Neither  truth,  nor  beauty,  nor  good- 
ness would  have  any  meaning,  or  be  anything  more 
than  words,  which  the  unthinking  brute  might  speak 
as  well  as  man,  unless  they  point  to  Him  and  come 
from  Him  in  whom  all  beauty,  truth  and  goodness 
find  alone  their  exhaustless  and  eternal  source  and 
sun.  They  are  not  God  ;  they  are  not  parts  of  Him ; 
but  they  are  revelations  of  Him  in  whom  we  live  and 
move  and  have  our  being,  who  is  not  thus  far  from 
any  one  of  us,  and  who  declares  something  of  His 
glory  to  the  eye  which  he  has  opened  to  behold  it  in 


29 

these  radiant  expressions  of  Himself.  We  call  him 
glorious,  whether  artist,  sage  or  hero,  who  has  seen 
and  made  known  to  us  the  glory  of  these  divine 
manifestations,  and  we  link  his  name  with  immortal 
renown.  But  the  glory  is  not  in  what  he  is,  but  in 
what  he  beholds.  This  it  is  which  has  furnished  him 
his  exaltation,  and  his  fame,  and  which  continually 
suffices  to 

"  Disturb  him  with  the  joy  of  elevated  thoughts, 
A  sense  sublime  of  something  far  more  deeply  interposed,- 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean  and  the  deep  blue  sky, 
And  on  the  mind  of  man." 

Thus  the  whole  intellectual  life  hangs  on  what,  in 
the  most  comprehensive  sense,  may  be  termed  the 
religious  life.  Its  original  impulse  comes  from  the 
religious  life,  and  it  will  be  strong  and  fruitful,  only 
as  this  is  profound  and  penetrating.  That  self-con- 
sciousness wherein  we  are  distinguished  from  the 
brute,  and  in  which  the  very  being  of  reason  consists, 
has  not  only  as  its  constant  attendant,  but  as  its  es- 
sential prerequisite,  the  consciousness  of  God.  "  To 
know  God,"  says  Jacobi,  "  and  to  possess  reason,  are 
one  and  the  same  thing,  just  as  not  to  know  God  and 
to  be  a  brute  are  one  and  the  same  thing."  This 
knowledge  may  be  very  vague  ;  its  first  dawnings 
may  be  so  dim  that  they  can  hardly  be  discerned 
from  the  feelings  out  of  which  they  rise ;  it  may 
often  remain  quite  obscure,  and  may  even  be  denied 
or  derided  by  the  very  intellect  which  has  derived 


BO 

all  its  light  and  life  therefrom,  but  the  truth,  still  and 
forever  remains  that  there  can  be  no  illumination  of 
the  intellect  without  a  prior  inspiration  of  the  heart, 
and  this  inspiration  of  the  heart  is  as  meaningless 
and  groundless  without  a  divine  imjDulse,  as  would  be 
the  light  and  warmth  of  earthly  nature  without  the 
quickening  presence  of  the  sun. 

In  all  this  I  have  only  uttered  what  the  deepest 
students  of  human  nature  have,  in  all  ages,  seen  and 
acknowledged.  The  truth  I  have  stated  is,  I  think, 
exactly  what  Plato  saw  when  he  said,  in  The  Republic, 
"  In  the  same  manner  as  the  sun  is  the  cause  of  sight, 
and  the  cause  not  merely  that  objects  are  visible,  but 
also  that  they  grow  and  are  produced,  so  the  good  is 
of  such  power  and  beauty  that  it  is  not  merely  the 
cause  of  science  to  the  soul,  but  is  also  the  cause  of 
being  and  reality  to  whatever  is  the  object  of  science, 
and  as  the  sun  is  not  itself  sight,  or  the  object  of 
sight,  but  presides  over  both,  so  the  good  is  not 
science  and  truth,  but  is  superior  to  both,  they  being 
not  the  good  itself,  but  of  a  goodly  nature." 

It  is  therefore  not  accidental  that  the  actual  his- 
torical progress  of  mankind  in  art,  science,  philoso- 
phy or  virtue  should  depend,  as  we  have  seen,  upon 
some  religious  impulse  for  its  beginnings  and  continu- 
ance. Nor  is  it  strange  that  schools  and  systems  of 
education  should  have  had  no  other  source.  It  is 
only  surprising  when  we  fancy  that  the  currents  of 
progress  can  now  be  made  to  flow  from  any  different 


31 

springs,  or  that  the  lamp  of  learning  can  be  lighted 
or  kept  burning  with  any  other  flame.  If  we  are 
wise  we  shall  not  only  learn,  but  be  guided  by  lessons 
which  history  and  human  nature  both  teach,  that 
education  divorced  from  religion  is  like  a  tree  severed 
from  its  nourishing  roots,  which  thereby  falls  to  the 
ground,  leaving  its  leaves  to  wither,  its  fruit  to  per- 
ish, and  itself  to  decay.  From  such  folly  we  turn, 
leaving  the  blind  to  lead  the  blind,  not  doubting  what 
the  end  to  them  both  will  be. 

What  then  are  the  practical  consequences  of  this 
truth  ?  What  adjustments  does  it  require  in  the  pro- 
cesses of  our  higher  education?  It  requires,  obvi- 
ously, that  the  corner  stone  and  the  top  stone  and 
the  informing  law  of  our  whole  educational  fabric 
should  be  Christian  faith  and  Christian  freedom,  the 
faith  in  which  the  true  religious  life  finds  its  only 
sufficient  root,  and  the  freedom  in  which  that  same 
life  finds  its  only  adequate  expression.  We  need 
Christian  faith  to  perpetuate  and  perfect  what  Chris- 
tian faith  has  begun.  For,  even  if  the  fabric  built 
upon  this  basis  could  be  kept  standing  when  its  foun- 
dations were  removed,  its  increasing  beauty  and  liv- 
ing growth  would  then  be  gone.  A  Christian  college, 
therefore,  looking  not  at  transient  but  at  permanent 
ends,  sowing  seed  for  a  perennial  harvest  of  the  far- 
thest science  and  the  fairest  culture,  will  be  solicitous, 
first  of  all,  to  continue  Christian.  If  it  is  to  be  in  the 
long  run  truly  successful  in  the  advancement  of  learn- 


ing,  it  will  have  the  Christian  name  written  not  alone 
upon  its  seal  and  its  first  records,  but  graven  in  its  life 
as  ineff  aceably  as  was  the  name  of  Phidias  on  Athene's 
shield.  It  wdll  seek  for  Christian  teachers  and  only 
these, — men  in  whom  are  seen  the  dignity  and  purity 
and  grace  of  Christ's  disciples,  and  whose  lips  instruct, 
while  their  lives  inspire.  It  will  order  all  its  studies 
and  its  discipline  that  its  pupils  through  the  deep  and 
permanent  impulse  of  a  life  by  the  faith  of  the  Son  of 
God,  may  be  led  to  the  largest  thoughts  and  kindled 
to  the  highest  aims,  wath  an  energy  undying  and  an 
enthusiasm  which  does  not  fade.  It  will  not  be 
ashamed  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  nor  remiss  in  preach- 
ing that  gospel  to  its  students  "  till  they  all  come  in 
the  unity  of  the  faith  and  of  the  knowledge  of  the 
Son  of  God  unto  a  perfect  man." 

But  this  is  to  be  taken  in  no  narrow  sense.  Chris- 
tian faith  does  not  fetter,  it  emancipates  the  mind. 
Just  in  proportion  to  its  depth  and  power  is  its  pos- 
sessor liberated  from  prejudice  and  superstition  and 
all  narrowness  of  thought.  Christian  faith  is  not  only 
not  hostile  to  free  thought,  but  it  finds  its  normal 
exercise  and  expression  in  this  very  freedom.  It  is 
itself  in  such  exact  accord  with  all  the  original  endow- 
ments and  deepest  instincts  of  the  soul — whose  foun- 
dations were  not  laid  in  falsehood — that  it  is  only  set- 
tled more  firmly  in  its  seat  by  free  inquiry.  It  is  only 
when  the  thought  becomes  fettered  and  is  no  longer 
free  that  it  fails  to  return — over  whatever  field    it 


33 

may  have  ranged — to  the  faith  which  has  inspired 
it. 

In  Raphael's  famous  School  of  Athens  the  great 
artist  has  represented  Plato  looking  upwards  and 
pointing  to  the  heavens,  but  holding  in  his  hand  as 
his  most  characteristic  work,  the  Timfeus,  wherein  he 
seeks  to  bring  upon  the  created  earth  the  light  of  the 
uncreated  heavens,  while  Aristotle,  standing  by  his 
side,  his  eye  lost  in  thought,  but  his  fingers  directed 
toward  the  earth  clasps  as  his  most  significant  trea- 
tise, the  Ethica,  wherein  he  would  find  the  heavenly 
principle  which  should  regulate  the  earthly  life.  The 
representation  is  worthy  of  the  great  genius  who 
made  it.  Philosophy,  where  its  inspiration  is  highest, 
and  its  investigations  are  deepest,  reaches  the  same 
result,  no  matter  in  what  direction  it  starts.  Plato 
beginning  with  the  heavens,  looked  so  comprehen- 
sively that  he  saw  the  earth  shining  in  the  light  of 
the  skies,  and  Aristotle  beginning  with  the  earth, 
looked  so  deeply  that  he  saw  the  heavens  beneath  it, 
the  same  heavens  which  Plato  saw  above.  It  is  a 
mistake,  though  one  often  and  easily  made,  to  sup- 
pose that  Plato  and  Aristotle  only  represent  the 
opposite  poles  of  idealism  and  empiricism.  They 
dij0fer  in  their  method  rather  than  in  their  end,  for 
the  idea,  as  Aristotle  apprehended  it,  was  just  as 
much  the  object  of  his  search,  as  of  Plato's,  They 
both  agreed  that  the  essence  of  the  individual  thing 
is  in  the  idea,  and  that  only  ideas  can  be  truly  known. 


34 

And  it  is  because  of  this  original  agreement, — this 
original  unity  of  insight  and  aim — that  in  the  end 
which  each  reached,  the  method  and  results  of  the 
one  were  justified  by  the  method  and  results  of  the 
other. 

In  like  manner  Christian  faith,  if  that  be  the  object 
sought,  may  be  reached  by  divers  methods  of  inquiry, 
and  we  shall  wisely  welcome  any  tendency  of  thought, 
starting  from  whatever  source  and  moving  in  what- 
ever direction,  which  has  this  faith  for  its  presupposi- 
tion and  is  zealously  bent  upon  discovering  and  declar- 
ing its  sufficient  grounds.  Only  that  tendency  of 
thought  which  divorces  itself  from  God  and  the  super- 
natural and  the  Christian  atonement  shall  we  wisely 
discard  from  our  processes  of  education,  and  this  not 
simply  because  such  a  tendency  is  untrue,  but  because 
it  is  necessarily  empty  and  vain,  because  it  has  no 
power  of  permanent  progress,  and  because  the  schools 
and  systems  of  education  left  to  its  control,  will  be- 
come first  superficial  and  formal  and  then  barren  and 
dead.  We  discard  it  just  as  Plato  and  Aristotle  would 
both  have  discarded  any  speculations  which  did  not 
presuppose  and  seek  the  idea  as  their  starting  point 
and  goal,  such  speculations  belonging,  as  Plato  would 
say,  only  to  a  world  of  darkness  and  shadows,  and 
being,  as  Aristotle  would  say,  of  necessity  fruitless 
and  dead.  A  philosophy  which  should  expend  itself 
upon  the  natural  and  ignore  the  supernatural  and  the 
spiritual  world,  would  be,  according  to  Plato,  only  a 


35 

phantasm  deluding  our  vision  and  vanishing  at  our 
touch,  and  a  science  which  should  content  itself  with 
looking  into  the  earth  without  looking  through  it 
unto  the  heavens,  would,  according  to  Aristotle,  be 
buried  in  Cimmerian  darkness  or  lost  in  Tartarean 
fires. 
/  Gentlemen  of  the  Trustees  and  the  Faculty,  Students 
'  and  Friends  of  Amherst  College :  I  take  up  the  work 
assigned  me,  in  the  spirit,  and  with  the  aims  I  have 
thus  endeavored  to  express.  Far  distant  be  the  day 
when  one  intrusted  with  the  interests  of  this  institu- 
tion in  any  degree,  should  set  before  him  any  other 
than  the  lofty  aim  which  has  prevailed  in  the  history 
of  Amherst  College  from  its  beginning  to  the  present 
time.  To  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  the  Savior, 
the  College  was  originally  dedicated,  and  to  Him  be  it 
now  again  presented  in  a  new  consecration,  ever  liv- 
ing and  all  embracing.  May  He  reign  and  ever  be 
acknowledged  in  all  its  affairs !  May  He  keep  the 
College  strong  and  progressive,  and  give  it  increasing 
power  through  the  increasing  strength  of  its  faith  in 
Him !  May  this  faith  be  so  firmly  fixed,  and  so  in- 
telligently held  that  it  shall  be  free  and  fearless  in  its 
exercise,  emancipated  from  all  intolerance  and  bigotry, 
showing  itself  in  largest  charity  and  sympathy,  and 
giving  speed  and  cheer  to  whatever  seeks  the  knowl- 
edge of  Christ,  in  whatever  avenue  the  search  be 
made,  and  yet,  because  it  is  a  living  and  not  a  dead 
faith  in  Jesus  Christ  and  his  atonement,   tolerating 


36 

nothing  which  makes  its  aim  to  set  aside  His  claims  ! 
May  He  guide  continually  the  guardians  of  the  Col- 
lege, and  live  in  the  life  and  speak  through  the  lips 
continually  of  every  teacher,  and  may  all  the  students 
who,  from  the  east  and  the  west,  the  north  and  the 
south,  shall  throng  these  halls,  be  made  complete  in 
Him  who  is  the  head  of  all  principalities  and  powers ! 
As  the  wise  men  from  the  East  came  and  laid  their 
gifts  in  adoring  homage  at  the  feet  of  the  babe  at 
Bethlehem,  so  may  Amherst  College  ever  show  that 
the  learning  of  the  wor-ld,  where  it  is  highest,  and 
deepest,  and  widest,  and  best,  is  conteut  to  sit  at  His 
feet  and  receive  instruction  from  Him,  who  is  not 
only  wise  but  Wisdom,  not  only  a  true  teacher  but 
Himself  the  Truth,  and  whose  words,  which  contain 
the  sum  of  our  faith,  reach  also,  and  ever  beyond  the 
summit  of  our  philosophy  ! 


u  Uf  iVih'iia/riiJiijyiai! 


•-•^^i^Jiu^ 


